“The new iPhone devices scheduled to be rolled out in the second half of 2017 will come without a home button, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report, citing sources from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC),” Steve Shen reports for DigiTimes.
“Apple will use an optical fingerprint sensor to enable authentication directly on the screen, said the report,” Shen reports. “Additionally, the new iPhone devices will also come with invisible infrared image sensors to enhance the functionality of high-pixel camera and to enable AR applications.”
Shen reports, “Meanwhile, the screen ratio of the displays of the new iPhone devices will be adjusted to 18.5:9 instead of the previous 16:9, added the report.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If true, yes! This is going to be the Mother of all iPhones.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s vacation blackout days for retail staff telegraph iPhone 8 release date – May 26, 2017
New report delivers another key iPhone 8 detail – May 25, 2017
Apple granted 56 patents today covering an edge-to-edge iPhone display, Touch ID under the display and 3D scanner – May 16, 2017
Good for Apple if the rumor is true. It will give the iPhone a slight advantage over the Galaxy S8 in ease of use. It might even make Galaxy S8 users a bit envious.
That may depend on whether they actually prefer the fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. I understand Samsung phones automatically go into ‘do not disturb’ mode when face down in which case having the fingerprint reader on the back makes perfect sense for them. Having the entire front screen as a fingerprint reader may prove not to be an envy point at all in that case.
Sounds cool!
Keep in mind folks that since all current fingerprint readers store partial fingerprints, you increase the likelihood of someone else unlocking your phone with each fingerprint you register on your device.
… With each additional fingerprint you register on your device.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/technology/fingerprint-security-smartphones-apple-google-samsung.html
Good point. It could be the same finger since it could generate a different partial print each time you register it.
Before anyone else follows the click bait link, I offer this brief summary.
“Easily fooled by MasterPrint fakes” IS accurate, but there’s no such thing as a MasterPrint fake that’s more than 65% effective. If a REAL WORLD test were to be done, they admit the rate would be much worse. It would be just as accurate to say that “fingerprint readers are easily fooled by synthetic 100% replicas of human digits” because those don’t exist either.
What an ass UR, dear anonymous coward. I don’t say that often. But UR such an ass.
To others: The ‘click bait’ link is to an article describing a scientific paper about research performed on fingerprint ID systems.
If readers would like me to compose a complete list of ways to fake a fingerprint reader, this far, I’d gladly oblige.
Meanwhile, ‘Wrong Again’ continues to chatter away to his mirror. What a pathetic ass. 🐎💩
I bask in your moronic hate. 😀
The NY Times article describes a theoretical claim that has NOT been tested on real-world phones. Therefore, the headline qualifies as clickbait because “IS NOT as safe as you think” should have been rendered as “MAY NOT BE as safe as you think” in keeping with their own style guidelines about evidence-based assertions.
But the article itself is not without disingenuity — the writer asserts “some newer biometric security options, such as the iris scanner in Samsung’s new Galaxy S8, are harder to trick.” Not according to Ars Technica the other day:
And at the end of the article, the researchers themselves are hardly panicking: “Dr. Memon said that despite his research, he was still using fingerprint security on his iPhone. ‘I’m not worried,’ he said. ‘I think it’s still a very convenient way of unlocking a phone. But I’d rather see Apple make me enter the PIN if it’s idle for one hour.'”
Apple does force the user to enter the password or passphrase after 48 hours, after a restart or remote lock, and after five attempts. After reading this scary story, Apple might well decide to install a time-delay slider into the next iOS, just to satisfy its more paranoid users.
As Dr. Memon understands the ‘problem’ it would be interesting how many fingerprints he registers with his iPhone. I’m leaning toward his registering the minimum number to have the system work and no more.
Source Article:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/so-you-think-you-can-secure-your-mobile-phone-with-a-fingerprint-300437892.html
Another source article, with instructions:
http://www.cryptome.org/gummy.htm
IOW: If the NYT is ‘fake news’, that’s perception. Meanwhile, there’s real research being done on the subject with real results that aren’t encouraging.
As usual, I post this stuff to help people. If people want to turn it into an excuse for hate rants, that’s not my problem. It’s their’s. I use hate as an excuse to pull out my Archangel Michael practice plastic sword. Have at you! 😉
The Gray Lady is not fake news. But it has at times been careless with semantics and scientific matters. This particular headline induces an unwarranted degree of anxiety in the reader, in exactly the same way as something like Wolves Spotted Near Your Playground.
I entirely understand and agree. Exaggeration, excitation, confabulation… Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Barf, Barf, Barf.
Yes, you increase your risk from infinitesimal to highly unlikely.
This isn’t true with iOS. You don’t have to dig deep to discover that iOS devices using Touch ID, don’t store fingerprints. Each paw you register is converted into a complex mathematical equation.
That equation can’t be used by anyone else to fake your finger print. Since iOS decides the kind of sum it turns a finger print into (to store in the secure enclave) each time a digit is placed on the sensor it turns that into an equation too. And then it says, hey does this equation look anything like the one stored in the secure enclave?
I know it’s unrelated, but as an analogy, it’s works like a hash table.
If you don’t understand how it works, then you should think before you speak 😉
You appear to not have read the article about Dr. Memon’s research. Fingerprint readers do not take millions of points, pass it through an algorithm and store them to match in the future. They take enough points (partial print) and pass that through to an algorithm to make a reasonably secure identification match. Register enough of them and one is bound to match on the same points of the fingerprint with a stranger.
You mention hash tables, but I’m not sure you know what they are. Hash tables are used to minimize the number of indexes to search. In other words the same hash will point to the same ‘box’ for multiple ‘items e.g. fingerprints’. This is BAD for fingerprint ID for obvious reasons.
Apple’s technology incrementally updates the fingerprint, gradually building a fuller image, and modifies its mathematical representtion accordingly. Doing this significantly reduces the odds of a partial match. Theirs is a smarter, dynamic identification protocol than is simplistically rendered in popular accounts.
It’s all Greek to me.
J/K 🤥
For those interested in how the WIDTH of the iP8 screen compares to the width of the iP7 and iP7+, the 18.5:9 aspect ratio and 5.8″ diagonal screen size allows us to calculate that (assuming that these given figures are correct)
By my calcs, the Widths of the 3 Phone screens:
width of iP8 screen = 2.54 inch
width of iP7+ screen = 2.69 inch
width of iP7 screen = 2.30 inch
The iP8 screen is about .4inch LONGER that than of the iP7+, which could be useful.
I was hoping (but not expecting) that the iP8 screen would be as wide as the iP7+. I’m a bit disappointed that it isn’t (its closer to the iP7+ than to the iP7) but it could be close enough for me personally